In this stylish and odd Los Angeles novel, Susan Lindley, recently widowed, inherits a house and changes her life. The house is filled with animal heads and even whole stuffed animals, grouped eccentrically in different rooms. Her husband was murdered in a foreign country, and she had unfaithful to him, so now she feels guilty, responsible for his death. Their marriage had taken a different course when their daughter Casey had a childhood accident that left her wheelchair-bound. Susan moves in with Casey, in their new house, and they establish a new relationship. There are some cousins who will contest the will that left the house to Susan, making her possession of the place less certain, which worries her since she comes to like the place. There's also a mystery about the house, because the old man who owned it before had a secret project that somehow related to his enthusiasm for hunting and collecting trophies.

Magnificence is more a novel of ideas than action: not much happens in the 250 or so pages (or nearly 7 hours of the unabridged audiobook) apart from Susan moving into the house, talking to her boyfriend and her daughter, holding a party, and discovering the secret of the house. This makes Xe Sands a good choice as reader of the audiobook because of her laconic and always slightly amused voice; she makes Susan's thoughts on life enjoyable and brings out the humor.

While Millet's narrator is in the third person, she is very much inside Susan's head; the most memorable parts of the novel are Susan's meditations on men, sex, marriage, motherhood, aging and her grief. Nearly all the main characters are women, and they all lounge around Susan's house having bizarre experiences. The world that Millet presents us with is one where women have to take care of other women, and men are peripheral. There is also a theme of the relation of the West with the rest of the world; it is not explicitly articulated but the attitude of most characters is colonial, using other parts of the planet for pleasure and entertainment.

Millet stands out as a thoughtful and clever writer with a light touch, never really endorsing any particular idea but examining a variety of views with a detached curiosity. There are many passages you will want to show to other people as good statements of thoughts you have entertained yourself or that have interested you, but have never really believed.

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